Friday, August 19, 2016

As much as I love the Olympics, I hate the media coverage of the Olympics. They focus on thing on which I don’t care, and I didn’t realize how ridiculously sexist the coverage is. If I were an alien visiting the earth, I would think that female athletes have to relinquish their names and only be addressed by their husbands and fathers in order to compete.

A Real American Hero

The only thing worse than the media coverage is the American people watching the game. For the most part, we’re pretty good, but it only takes a few to plant the seed of dickishness against an athlete. This year’s target was also Olympics 2012’s target: Gabby Douglas. After winning gold in the team gymnastics event, People were “furious” that she didn’t put her hand over her heart when the National Anthem was played. I have two words for “people”: Fuck you. You’re incensed that Gabby Douglas neglected to put her hand over her heart? Her love of country is now in question? It doesn’t matter that she LITERALLY bent of backwards numerous times representing the USA in order to gain victory in front of millions of people from all over the world, so that we could add to our collective stash of gold medals? I throw much shade at your accusations. This has nothing to do with her “patriotism”. I’m sure the same people who have been throwing Gabby Douglas under the bus are the ones who said nothing when Donald Trump did the same crime of heart-uncovery recently. The standards are so double.

You’d think that black people would have Gabby Douglas’s back when she was attacked for the Hand-Over-Heartgate. Sadly, black people are too concerned over the look of Gabby Douglas’s hair than how she was being depicted as a non-patriot. So many tweets about her edges. People saying that she has the money to get her hair “done”. Guess what, black people? Fuck you , too. You train hardcore all your life, even more intensely for four years, edge out hundreds of other talented gymnasts, make it to Rio, once again, LITERALLY bend over backwards to win gold, and see how your hair looks. If you work out the right way, your hair is going to get a little messed up. This isn’t Planet Fitness, it’s the Olympics! Even so, HER HAIR WASN’T MESSED UP! Gabby Douglas is a black woman. Her roots are curly, and they get tighter when she sweats her ass off winning a medal in your dumbass names. That’s what black hair does. You know this, because YOU ARE BLACK, TOO. Her edges aren’t messed up. Her edges are the Line of Freedom™.

See how much cuter you are when you smile?

As if that weren’t enough, She was berated for not smiling on camera when she didn’t make the all-around finals, even though she finished third, behind two other US gymnasts. It’s disrespectful? It’s “unsportsmanlike” to not be happy? No; we’re just assholes. Douglas doesn’t need to smile 100% of the time in order to be happy for her teammates who made it. She may have been disappointed in herself and analyzing what she could have done better. Or maybe it was just her face. She didn’t look angry to me. Gabby Douglas suffers two faux conditions. She has “Resting Bitch Face”. White women have been told to smile for years, because if they don’t have even a hint of a burgeoning grin on their faces at all times, then they are OBVIOUSLY total bitches. Black women suffer from RBF as well, but it is complicated with “Resting Angry Negro Face”. This “illness” is seen when a black person is not almost cracking a smile, as though they are about to rip off their coats to show that they’ve been wearing tuxes and dresses the whole time, ready to dance and sing and shuck and jive at any moment, in the office, at the store, or just walking down the street. If we don’t have that smile on our faces, then we are OBVIOUSLY angry about something, and we will explode any second. Fun Fact: RANF is the cause of 24,901 miles walked annually by whites having to cross the street so that they don’t become the victims of our potential Angry Negro Rage™ when they see us walking toward them. That’s the circumference of the earth! That is per scared white person. Gabby Douglas’s RBF and RANF will plague her for the rest of her days. Apparently, only straight white men can have the coveted expressionless “Face”. Meanwhile, McKayla Maroney and Michael Phelps can have screw faces, and they get to be memes. Phelps even had a hoodie on for his!

Skank in the Pool

While we reflect on the ridiculousness of the attacks on Gabby and the shade throwing to the point that she was in tears, Let’s talk about another incident that happened outside the stadiums. Ryan Lochte was busy getting robbed by policemen at a gas station. Except that’s not what happened. Ryan Lochte vandalized a gas station bathroom and then paid the gas station owner for the damages, but he reported to the public that he was robbed at gunpoint by thieves dressed as policemen. It turns out that was all a lie. While many are incensed, I don’t think people get how messed up this is. In lying about the robbery, Ryan Lochte took advantage of an already negative image of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, which has its problems with crime and corruption. He spun a hyperbolic yarn that he knew most would believe, because he knew that the public would expect it and still be shocked. He garnered the sympathy that he wanted, and he returned to the US by the time detectives figured out that he lied. He pretty much just white privileged his way out of trouble THAT HE CREATED. Nice. It’s not like this is a new thing. I hope that the lot of the people in the US who are “shocked” by Lochte’s lie know that some of their ancestors did the same type of yarn spinning on American soil back in the day to black, brown and Asian people. They would make

What happens when liars lie.

up a lie about being robbed or beat up or worse and then form a lynch mob and torture and kill innocent people. When it was found out that the person or persons the mob killed had nothing to do with the crime, or that the crime in question never happened, people would just shrug it off or excused it by thinking that “their kind” are dangerous anyway, so what’s the harm? We still don’t know exactly how many died from lynching. We think about 3,500, but it’s likely more. So lying about a crime to cement a negative stereotype about brown people is as American as using privilege to get away with it.

The apologists are already in full force. Mario Andrada, a spokesman for Rio 2016 has already stated that he doesn’t even expect an apology from Lochte and his cohorts, and that they made a mistake, and we should “just move on”. Except they didn’t make a mistake. They destroyed a bathroom for no good reason. They lied about it to the police and the public, and they garnered sympathy that was undeserved, and as of this writing, they have yet to admit that they were caught in a lie, and the ring leader is in the US already, free of any real punishment. “Give these kids a break”, Andrada said. Lochte is 32. It is interesting, because last Olympics, the media made Lochte out to be the Goofus to Michael Phelps’s Gallant. Lochte was the arrogant skank until Phelps got caught smoking America’s favorite kinda drug, marijuana. But now he’s just a zany kid getting into mischief. He is far from being a kid, though. He is well into mid-adult skankiness with his actions. The irony is that he is 30 and labeled a “kid”, but black and brown ACTUAL kids are always seen as being older than what they are. Props to Andrada for enabling Lochte’s privilege powers.

For all these shenanigans, Everyone needs to apologize to Gabby Douglas for being such assholes to her. She has likely done more for this country than any of her detractors. For Gabby Douglas herself, I think she should go to 23andMe.com or Ancestry.com, and get one of those genaeology tests to determine her countries of origin. Next Olympics, she should join one of THOSE gymnastics teams. In fact, just to piss off the black people talking about her hair more than her performance, she should join whatever European country shows up in the results (She’s American black; there is DEFINITELY a European country in the mix). She should perform in the biggest afro possible, like a time-lapse afro, where when she turns he head, it takes a second for her ‘fro to turn. That afro should be so big that it will need to try out on its own. And then when she wins gold for Denmark or England or Portugal or whereeverthefuck, She should look directly at the American news cameras, and flip them off with a shit-eating grin. Simone Biles may want to take notes. She may be taking selfies with Zach Ephron now, but don’t think they won’t turn on her with such pettiness.